Review: Erasing Time by C.J. Hill

In this high-action and romantic futuristic adventure, there is no escape from the future for two contemporary girls pulled out of their own time.

When twins Sheridan and Taylor wake up 400 years in the future, they find a changed world: domed cities, no animals, and a language that’s so different, it barely sounds like English. And the worst news: They can’t go back home.

The twenty-fifth-century government transported the girls to their city hoping to find a famous scientist to help perfect a devastating new weapon. The moblike Dakine fights against the government, and somehow Taylor and Sheridan find themselves in the middle. The only way to elude them all is to trust Echo, a guy with secrets of his own. The trio must put their faith in the unknown to make a harrowing escape into the wilds beyond the city.

Full of adrenaline-injected chases and heartbreaking confessions, Erasing Time explores the strength of the bonds between twins, the risks and rewards of trust, and the hard road to finding the courage to fight for what you believe in.

I went into this book only knowing it was sci fi. I liked not really knowing what it was about because it allowed me to be surprised with every twist and turn. But when I read that description it makes me even more excited about this book because it’s so accurate and true.

The girls are from now and are pulled into the future 400 years. Imagine how much our language has changed, how sayings have died out and how much things are just so different. I really enjoyed this bit. The twins didn’t need a secret twin language, they could just talk in figures of speech and no one knew what they were saying. This was awesome and hilarious. Now the only ones who even understand Sheridan and Taylor are Echo and his father who are wordsmiths. They’ve studied history, particularly our century. So they know the language. Or dialect, really. They also have loads of questions. They have really misinterpreted a lot of stuff and it’s pretty funny to hear the things they’ve always thought.

I really enjoyed the characters in the book a lot. Taylor was a bit hard to warm up to, but Sheridan and Echo are the ones who we get the story from. It’s not in first person, but yet from their POV. And they were great characters. I also really loved Echo’s father who has so much enthusiasm for history and can’t seem to soak up enough information that the girls have to share. Though sometimes they just have plain old fun with them and tell them totally ridiculous things.

The sci fi elements weren’t confusing or over my head. I suppose there was some science’y stuff I didn’t understand, but it was so brief it wasn’t really an issue. And I could picture this future so clearly and it brought up so many things about our own society and the direction it may be taking. Or could take. And it’s scary stuff.

The book is a bit slower paced until closer to the end. At times I grew frustrated because the lack of communication and it felt like things weren’t getting anywhere. I just wanted everyone to talk and figure it out rather then refusing to trust anyone. I also felt like the romance moved a bit fast. I mean, they could have had time to develop feelings first. However it didn’t really have an insta love feel either because there’s not any undying love, it’s still just attraction, but the kissing starts early.

Overall this was a really enjoyable read. It had funny, it had romantic and it had intense action. It’s also a clean read as there’s no bad language, no drug use, no sex and the violence is minimal. The end of the book had a good closing, but could be open for more. I don’t know for sure if it’s a planned series, but it felt that way to me as there’s so much more to happen.

I received this book as a gift from someone who got it from ALA. All opinions expressed are my own and I was not paid or influenced in any way.

About Candace

Candace is an eclectic reader that loves young adult and adult books. She also reviews children's and middle grade books because she's the mother of two children. She's been blogging since 2008 and is also the owner and operator of CBB Book Promotions.

Comments

I like the fact that it’s not insta love, even if things do progress quickly. I can definitely believe in instant attraction and affection, as long as there’s no pining and “I can no longer function with out you” type issues. Glad to know the scifi element isn’t confusing at all, it’s always hard to get involved in a story when things are continuously going over my head:) Looking forward to this one Candace!

Yeah, no pining in this one! Although some regrets when they think they might not get a chance to find out if they’d work as a couple. I’ve been loving YA sci-fi cause it’s so much easier to comprehend than the adult sci fi books. Those ones go WAY over my head!

I love SciFi (ok really what don’t I love? lol) and this books sounds great to me! I also have a love of linguistics and I think it would be fascinating to see the authors imagined evolution of our language and the interpretations historians and linguists of the future would have about our idioms! Plus I love stories about twins (my sisters are twins!)

Great review! I’m on the look out for my sci-fi YA reads so this has got my attention!

Also, hi! I found your blog after I saw you comment on the Shooting Stars blog about being vegan and maybe going gluten free. I’m vegan, gluten free and soy free and I promise it’s do-able 🙂 Also, we’re now following your blog, I love finding other vegan book bloggers!

Melissa,It’s really hard sometimes just for the reason that I have a family to feed. We went vegan as a family last summer but my kids just weren’t eating enough and have trouble with gaining weight as they should so I started letting them not be vegan and then it was too hard with them being vegetarian and eating at friends houses and school an whatnot so they aren’t even vegetarian anymore. So pretty much everything I make I have to make something separate for me. Which means I eat a lot of salads. But I do buy a lot of the vegan fake meats and stuff to put in meals. I also make a lot Asian type foods and they are all vegan. But the prepared vegan foods are utilized a lot in this house because I hate cooking. I have gone back and forth between vegan and vegetarian though because when I visit my family in SD there’s not really much I can eat as a vegan and so I just don’t stress it too much. I don’t like cheese that much anyway, but it’s hard when others are preparing foods because you know that some milk and eggs are going to end up in the foods. I don’t like milk so almond milk works fine in our house. And I miss eggs just because it’s an easy breakfast, but that’s pretty much it. Summer has been hard because I got use to making a lot of soups and chili’s in the winter. This summer I’ve really struggled with summer foods. I think that going vegan cold turkey worked well in knowing what is in everything we eat and so even at the times that I’m not strictly vegan I’m mostly vegan. I mean when I go on trips and stuff. But at home I’ve gotten pretty use to it. Fortunately I live in the Pacific NW and being vegan is quite common. There are several grocery stores that cater to us but even the regular stores like Safeway have vegan sections.

Great review, Candace. I agree that the science stuff was actually not confusing despite being pretty deep at a few places. I’m not sure I understood it fully but I never felt confused per say. I enjoyed this one too despite the few issues I had with it. Mostly with the pacing. I think book 2 will def. be more for me.